"No. It's stock-raising we want to follow, I believe," said the girl, calmly. "We must raise feed for our steers, fatten them in fenced pastures, and ship them more quickly." "My goodness!" exclaimed Pratt, admiringly, "you talk as though you understood all about it, Miss Frances." "I think I _do_ know something about the new conditions that face us ranchers of the Panhandle," the girl said, quietly. "And why shouldn't I? I have been hearing it talked about, and thinking of it myself, ever since I can remember." Secretly Pratt thought she must have given her attention to something beside the ranch work and cattle-raising. Of this he was assured when they went inside later, and Frances sat down to the piano. The instrument was in a big room with a bare, polished floor. It was evidently used for dancing. There was a talking machine as well as a piano. The girl played the latter very nicely indeed. There were a few scratches on the floor of the room, and she saw Pratt looking at them. "I told Ratty M'Gill he shouldn't come in here with the rest of the boys to dance if he didn't take his spurs off," she said. "We have an old-time hoe-down for the boys pretty nearly every week, when we're not too rushed on the ranch. It keeps 'em better contented and away from the towns on pay-days." "Are the cowpunchers just the same as they used to be?" asked Pratt. "Do they go to town and blow it wide open on pay-nights?" "Not much. We have a good sheriff. But it wasn't so long ago that your fancy little city of Amarillo was nothing but a cattleman's town. I'm going to have a representation of old Amarillo in our pageant--you'll see. It will be true to life, too, for some of the very people who take part in our play lived in Amarillo at the time when the sight of a high hat would draw a fusillade of bullets from the door of every saloon and dance-hall." "Don't!" gasped Pratt. "Was Amarillo ever like _that_?" "And not twenty years ago," laughed Frances. "It had a few hundred inhabitants--and most of them ruffians. Now it claims ten thousand, has bricked streets that used to be cow trails, electric lights, a street-car service, and all the comforts and culture of an 'effete East.'" Pratt laughed, too. "It's a mighty comfortable place to live in--beside Bill Edwards' ranch, for instance. But I notice here at the Bar-T you have a great many of the despised Eastern luxuries." "'Do-funnies' daddy calls them," said Frances, smiling. "Ah! here he is." The old ranchman came in, the holstered pistol still slung at his hip. "All secure for the night, Daddy?" she asked, looking at him tenderly. "Locked, barred, and bolted," returned her father. "I tell you, Pratt, we're something of a fort here when we go to bed. The court's free to you; but don't try to get out till Ming opens up in the morning. You see, we're some distance from the bunk-house, and nobody but the two Chinks are here with us now." "I see, sir," said Pratt.